Euskara is spoken in the Basque Country, straddling the border between Spain and France, by about 3 million people. Until recently a rural language, Euskara is characterized by a relatively large number of dialects, especially considering the small geographical region in which it is spoken. Beginning in the 1970s, efforts have been made to make a unified Basque, called Batua. There are now television, radio, newspaper, and books in Euskara. While still a language spoken by relatively few people, it is experiencing a revival that offers promise of a future.

A great deal of scholarly research has been devoted to Euskara, because of its unique situation in Europe and the possible mirror it offers to the prehistory of the Iberian Peninsula and Europe more generally.

Larry Trask

Larry Trask was a highly regarded expert on the Basque language, especially its history and origins. He passed away on March 28, 2004, while working on an etymological dictionary of Basque. The articles in the collected postings cover everything from the origins of the Basque words for the colors to how Basque pronunciation has evolved.

Learning Euskara, or Basque, can be a daunting task for an English speaker as the structure of Euskara is very different from English. It is my understanding, however, that the structure is similar to Japanese and is thus a bit easier for Japanese speakers.

Intensive Programs

Barnetegiak eta Euskaltegiak

These are places to learn the Basque language in an intensive environment.

Though Euskara is a language isolate, it has had extensive contact with many other languages. In fact, pidgins combining Euskara with both Micmac and Icelandic developed over the course of Basque contact with other cultures during their explorations of the seas.

Jon Aske collected an impressive set of Basque proverbs, which he posted individually to the Basque-L mailing list a number of years ago. With his permission, I've formatted his collection and placed it here in a few different formats.

One of the most amazing features of the Basque language is the construction of verbs, which is mostly done via one auxilliary verb which indicates just about every aspect of action: subject, object (both direct and indirect), time, tense, condition, etcetera.

Basque literature had a slow start, especially considering that the language wasn't standardized until 1976, but it is gaining momemtum. Probably one of the most well known Basque authors is Bernardo Atxaga, author of Obabakoak.